A ninth lawsuit alleging discrimination has been filed against Wyandotte County’s publicly-owned utility.

Lisa Casey, who is Black and has been employed by the Board of Public Utilities since 1994, filed the latest federal lawsuit on Friday, alleging she was passed over for a job and denied other opportunities given to white coworkers.

The BPU faces several ongoing lawsuits alleging race and disability discrimination. Last year, lawsuits against the BPU were filed by an employee who alleged a coworker used the n-word, another employee who said a supervisor made “racist and sexist comments” and an employee alleging disability discrimination.

Five other employees in 2022 similarly sued the Unified Government, which owns the utility company, alleging they faced racial discrimination from colleagues, hostile work environments created by supervisors or targeted investigations.

Casey began as a plant relief operator and has been a service dispatcher since 2012.

In June 2022, she applied for two openings, a scheduling position and a storeroom position. According to Casey’s lawsuit, she turned down an interview for the latter due to an interview for the scheduling job.

The scheduling job was awarded to the spouse of the interim chief operating officer, the lawsuit said.

“Over the course of her employment, Plaintiff has witnessed and been victim to differential treatment between minorities and Caucasian employees,” the lawsuit said, including being denied overtime opportunities that were given to white coworkers.

When Casey made complaints, she faced retaliation, the lawsuit said.

Unified Government officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Casey’s lawsuit.